Monday, July 30, 2012

The "Irreplaceables"; another flawed report from TNTP

A new report from The New Teacher Project
(TNTP), focused on the need to keep good teachers, who they call
"irreplaceable", is posted here.

In a press release, Bloomberg used its release
as an occasion to push his proposal for a $20K bonus for high-performers that
he first mentioned in his State of the City
address last winter, and blamed the UFT for blocking it:

The study released today by TNTP –
and which New York City participated in – confirms that school districts across
the country must do more to keep great teachers in our classrooms. That’s
exactly why we have offered to add a $20,000 annual stipend to the salaries of
teachers who are rated highly effective for two consecutive years.

This press release omits several prominent
facts:

Teacher merit pay was tried already in NYC and failed to show
results;

He didn’t propose a penny for it in the executive budget and
provided no funding for it.

Yet again, the corporate reformers are trying to
recycle the same old wasteful ideas though they have already been tried and
failed, over again.

The TNTP report has many flaws, including
identifying “irreplaceable” teachers through growth in student test scores,
which is highly unreliable. (See for example, in my piece in today's NYT Room for
Debate on this very issue.) In three out of the four districts, they
use only one year’s change in scores, even more volatile; and essentially
unable to identify which “irreplaceable” teachers will be high-performers the
following year.

As the Shanker
Blog points out, if you were
going by NYC’s Teacher Data Reports, as many as 40% of the “irreplaceables” in
NYC would be considered “replaceable” the next year.

The TNTP also report pushes merit pay though
there is absolutely no research or support among teachers for its. See
for example, this Gates-funded national
survey:

73% of teachers disagreed that state tests provide an “accurate
reflection of student achievement”;

64% said that student scores on standardized tests should be
used only “a slight amount” or “not at all” in evaluating teachers.

Only 16% of teachers thought pay tied to teachers’
performancewas “essential” or “very important”, with 49% saying it
was not all important, and 36% saying it was somewhat important.

Compare this with the 90% of teachers who
responded that having fewer students in a class would have a “very strong” or
“strong” impact on improving student achievement.

The TNTP report says their own survey showed
that working conditions are crucial in retaining good teachers, which is indeed
true, but then doesn’t identify which working conditions teachers pointed to as
critical (and of course, does not mention class size anywhere.)

The report also pushes weakening seniority
protections and tenure, saying this would help schools retain the
“irreplaceables,” but does not mention if the teachers surveyed said this would
help (which I doubt.)

For example, in the Gates-funded survey, 84% of
teachers agreed with this statement: “Teacher tenure protects teachers
from unfairly losing their jobs.”

Interestingly, the TNTP report itself implies that
it would be relatively easy for principals to get low-performing teachers to
leave:

“Our research indicates
that principals are capable of ushering low- performers out by simply being
candid with them about their performance and fit in the school. In one
district, teachers whose principals encouraged them to leave…were nearly three
times more likely to leave.” (p. 17)

Although the primary
responsibility for building and nurturing school culture rests with individual
principals, district leaders play an important role too. For example,
they can survey teachers and students regularly to ensure that principals have
regular actionable information about the gaps in their schools’ culture and
working conditions. (p. 18).

Accordingly, the mayor should address the poor
working conditions that drive teachers away from our schools, many of them who
leave to work in the suburbs or in private schools where class sizes are
smaller.

Of course, 86% of NYC principals already say
that the class sizes in their schools are too large for them to provide a
quality education. Clearly, it is the primary responsibility of the
Bloomberg administration for imposing system-wide policies that deny principals
the ability to reduce them.

In conclusion, quoting the TNTP report, “Retaining
as many Irreplaceables as possible requires a shared commitment from school and
district leaders to address working conditions that can drive great teachers
away.”

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Read todays John Liu piece in the Daily News it really nails the Bloomberg priorities for the city. Also, the mayor this past Friday on his Ramble with Gambling on WOR radio took pride in the diminished ranks of the NYPD. But, the recent spate of drive by gang related shootings is placing heat on the mayor and Commissioner Kelly and the PBA maintains that more officers are needed. The opposite of class size for the NYPD anything to make him the national leader he wants so desperately. As for the TNTP they are more of the same dribble that infants often exhibit when their Pavlovian bell is rung. They cannot refute or compare with your knowledge of what is needed to start to address the needs of the public school system.

All this would do is put more emphasis on the ridiculous test at the expense of the children's learning.We would lose more excellent teachers then we would ever gain using the criteria the mayor proposes. It is just another political ploy by a mayor who after nine years has done nothing to improve the school system.

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